


Make It Facebook Official

by Jairissa



Category: Wild Child (2008)
Genre: Best Friends, Blatant Abuse of Social Media, F/M, Fashion & Couture, Long-Distance Relationship, Social Networking, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 11:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jairissa/pseuds/Jairissa
Summary: Poppy's so busy that she has to carefully manage which social media platforms she can be bothered to spend time on. Facebook doesn't make the cut.Until it should have. Oops.





	Make It Facebook Official

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aceface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceface/gifts).



"Green," Drippy insisted. Poppy rolled her eyes because everyone knew red was going to be the big color this year, and even that was past cliché. Red or green for Christmas? Too obvious. Nostalgia was big this year, though, like red was. It wasn't just the association with her name that made her sure, red was clearly the classier choice.

"No way," she said. Drippy's eyebrow rose, an expression she'd copied from Poppy in school, and never quite abandoned. The sarcastic look suited her. She'd lost some of her childhood dizziness and replaced it with an intensity that made her terrifying to most people. 

Most people hadn't seen her eat so much ice cream she passed out in her bowl, though, so Poppy was safely still immune.

"Way," Drippy confirmed. "I'd stake my professional reputation on it."

"You mean _my_ professional reputation?" Poppy stuck her tongue out. "Okay. What's wrong with red, then?"

"I just don't like it," Drippy shrugged. "Does anything else matter?"

No it didn't. Yeah, Poppy might have the fashion empire, but Drippy had _hunches_. Poppy didn't know what it was, but somehow 'I just don't like it' tended to lead to a record-breaking season and two dozen copycat looks on the next season of Project Runway. Poppy loved the episodes she got to guest judge. Nina Garcia hated it when anyone showed her up on the origin of a look.

"Ugh, fine," Poppy said. Drippy grinned and handed over the coffee she had been holding hostage. 

"I'm the best personal assistant ever," Drippy said, pulling her still frizzy blonde hair back from her face. 

"You shouldn't be a personal assistant," Poppy countered. It was a well-trod argument. "You make better choices than most of my designers. Are you sure-"

"Yep," Drippy grinned, and bounced her way in the direction of Poppy's office door. "You have a Facebook message. For once, Poppy, just say yes to Facebook."

"What are you doing on my Facebook account?" Poppy yelled after her, but Drippy had a fantastic sense of timing. The door had closed long before Poppy could finish her scathing accusation. She really needed to do something about how good the sound proofing was in this place.

Then, for once, Poppy said yes to Facebook.

Drippy had under exaggerated. Actually, she had 312 notifications of various sorts, and 82 friend messages. Okay, maybe she did need to check it more often, but Facebook was so yesterday. Poppy had way better things to do than schmooze with people she barely knew. Not when the people she knew well were so much better.

Still, it couldn't hurt to accept a few friends. It looked like Charlotte had finally gotten an account of her own. The poor woman had been terrified to join social media after Harriet had married a Duke and joined every possible platform to brag at everyone she'd ever known. 

Well, except Poppy. Apparently even Harriet had enough common sense to realize there was no point taunting Poppy. It had never worked out well for her.

Then Poppy flicked her eyes back up to the top of the list and froze. Freddie Kingsley. 

Crap.

Poppy practically dove for her phone and hit the first name on her frequent contacts list. It had been the same for a decade now, it was practically instinct to hit it when she panicked.

"Kate, help!" Poppy yelped.

"What now?" Kate yawned, and right, time zones. Poppy kept begging her to move to America; she had so many contacts in the media industry that she figured Kate could have her pick of jobs. Poppy still disagreed with the sentiment that a career in foreign correspondence often required being somewhere foreign.

"What does it mean when your boyfriend wants to be your friend on Facebook?" Poppy asked. She clicked on Freddie's page suspiciously. It was filled with messages from friends, a lot of names she recognized from his school friends, even more from the co-workers she'd met when she managed to make it to England at the few points that also corresponded with one of his work events.

"What?" Kate asked after a long pause. 

"I don't use Facebook, Kate, you know that! If I wanted to keep up with people, I'd use twitter. I don't need their lives in detail, I need small snippets!" Poppy didn't see anything that Freddie hadn't told her personally, which was so boring. If internet stalking wasn't finding anything new, did that mean the mystery was gone? "He sent the request three months ago!"

"It means you need to check Facebook more," Kate said. Poppy could hear the eyeroll. It was a skill, a real talent. The only body language Poppy could convey over the phone was a yawn, and that was only because it usually led straight to snoring when she fell asleep on her desk.

"Why didn't he tell me when he was here three months ago? Or two months ago? Or last week?" Poppy asked doubtfully. Freddie played Candy Crush? Yeah, the mystery was gone. There was nothing more you could learn about a person once you've analyzed their Facebook games. Like the fact that they still played Facebook games. 

Her boyfriend was such a dork.

"He probably didn't think it was a big deal," Kate said, and was that a _shrug_? Poppy really needed to learn how to do that.

"What if he did, and he didn't tell me because he's insecure?" Poppy asked. Kate snorted, and stretched. Poppy only knew that one because she always made a weird little grunt-squeak when she did it. It was cute now. Not so much when it'd woken her up four times a night during their final year exams.

"Why don't you ask him?" Kate asked sensibly.

"He's in England," Poppy pouted. "He's probably asleep."

Okay, yeah, Poppy could still be a little self-absorbed, but even she realized pretty quickly how she'd screwed that one up.

"Good night, Poppy," Kate said.

"Good night, Kate," Poppy said meekly. Kate waited to hang up until she'd heard Poppy speak, which officially made her a way better friend than Drippy.

She glared at her laptop screen for a few minutes before giving up. Yeah, blaming random objects for ruining her life was cathartic, but she also had at least seven hours of work left to do and three hours before the ten pm deadline her family had collectively enforced the first time she'd gone to brunch and passed out from exhaustion in her poached egg whites.

By the time she got home it'd be all right to call Freddie anyway.

* * *

So, Poppy forgot to call Freddie when she got home. In her defense, she had to deal with a metaphorical fire in Vogue's review of her newest line, and an actual fire in her Colorado warehouse. (The building was no smoking for a _reason_ , dude who was lucky she didn't fire him). She'd pretty much taken her shoes and makeup off and face planted on her bed in her favorite power suit.

Of course, that meant that he called her as soon as her alarm went off, which was way better anyway. As nice as it was to hear Freddie's voice when she was going to bed, she loved it so much more when she heard him first thing in the morning. It reminded her that he was still there, that he'd chosen to stay, even though their lives were so far away right now.

Thank god she was opening a London office that she could work out of next year. It was great to finally have an end date to the eternal long distance. 

"Morning," Poppy said through a yawn. She'd never been a morning person. Being excited to get up every morning and do whatever life had planned for her that day didn't make it any easier to haul herself from her warm bed and happy dreams. "Sorry I didn't call last night."

"That's okay, Trouble," Freddie said. She hoped he was smiling. He didn't have Kate's emotions through the phone waves down either. Maybe they could take a couple's class together? "I needed to get to work early anyway, so it all worked out."

"Are you upset that I didn't friend you on Facebook?" Poppy asked, because it was easier to get these things out of the way quickly. She'd taken a class on interpersonal relationships and communication in college. It'd convinced her quickly that those classes were crap, and her own way of just asking (Josie's "being rude, Poppy!" still echoed in her ears) was way easier.

"What?" He laughed. Poppy loved his laugh so much. "Why would I be?"

"I don't know," Poppy said, wandering out of her bedroom in the vague direction of the kitchen. She was fairly sure she was still required to eat something for breakfast, so she grabbed some yoghurt from the fridge, a spoon from the drawer and doubled back towards the living room to flop into the beanbag she and Kate had bought their freshman year at Berkeley. "You might feel neglected? Like your beautiful, charming, wonderful girlfriend is ignoring your needs or something?"

"I don't feel like my wonderfully confident girlfriend is ignoring my needs," Freddie said. She could hear a metallic squeaking in the background; he was talking to her while he was exercising again. Okay, so maybe the mystery was gone, but the magic sure wasn't. She still went a little cross-eyed at the thought of him shirtless and sweaty.

Way too many of her favorite fantasies had come from that first summer he'd come to stay with her in California.

"Wait, so why did you do it then?" Poppy asked, leaning back a little and fanning herself with her hand. She needed to turn her air conditioning on. Was it on? Maybe she needed to get it fixed. Who did you call about something like that? 411?

"Mum was worried we'd broken up," Freddie explained. "You know how she gets. If it's not Facebook official, it's not real."

"I regret ever introducing her to social media," Poppy muttered.

It had seemed like such a good idea. She'd gotten weirdly attached to Mrs. Kingsley when she was at school. She'd loved the idea of being able to keep in touch with her without making it _look_ like she was trying to keep in touch with her.

It had made sense at the time. Poppy had taken a while to get over her insecure stage. 

"Me too," Freddie huffed. 

"I was getting a little worried," Poppy mused. "You know I prefer Instagram."

At least she hoped he knew that she preferred Instagram. It was vital to know what was important to your significant other. She wasn't sure she could stay with someone who didn't know where she posted the carefully curated portrait of her life.

Then he huffed again, and yeah, okay. Poppy could forgive a lot when she thought about the shirtless thing.

"I do know," Freddie said. "Actually, on that note, you might want to check that."

Poppy made a face. That's how she knew this was love. She would far prefer to really talk to Freddie than to have a half-hearted conversation while scrolling through her various feeds. There was almost no one she could say that about. (She loved her father, but now that he'd retired and become obsessed with bird watching he had become _so boring_. Thank god Rosemary was into microbrewing or she'd have nothing to talk about with either of them.)

Still, she flipped her phone away from her face and turned it on to speaker phone. Instagram was always open in the background, so it was easy enough to flip to the app and refresh the screen. Tilting her head, Poppy frowned.

Drippy's breakfast, all over the floor, her cat looking smug.

Drippy's breakfast, carefully cooked and beautifully vegetarian.

Kate with the tallest building in Dubai in the background.

Kiki and Josie wearing matching outfits (Poppy's couture range, of course) at some sort of parent's evening fashion parade.

Kiki and Josie with their husbands and adorable children outside the school that wasn't Abbey Mount but hopefully one day would be.

Drippy's dinner.

Kate's dinner.

Crap. Poppy had forgotten to eat dinner again. Everything else she’s already seen, liked and commented on appropriately. She looked for hidden clues from everything from the magic eye to the “spot” the difference school of photo analysis and found nothing.

"I don't get it," Poppy said finally. 

"Look again," Freddie said. Poppy dutifully refreshed the page. There were all the same posts she'd just looked at, but right at the top, where his name had been on her suggested Facebook friends list was a post from Freddie Kingsley.

A beautiful moissanite ring, in a platinum setting. A picture of them at one of their first dances at school. A photo of them at New York Fashion Week last year. A picture of Freddie, hands made into a heart in front of his chest.

"Did you just propose to me over _Instagram_? My Dad's going to freak!" Poppy squealed. “he doesn’t even have Instagram.”

That wasn't what she meant to say. She meant to say that she loved Freddie so much. That she adored that he remembered that she'd mentioned, only once, years ago, that she wanted moissanite because it was sparklier and didn't come with the guilt of blood diamonds on her conscience.

That she missed him every second, and practically lived for the times they could be in the same city. That it meant everything to her that he supported her enough that he was happy for her career, even though it meant they needed to be apart so much.

That she was so grateful he'd forgiven her ten years ago, because he was by far the best choice she'd ever made.

"Yes," He said, his accent perfect and precise. He only sounded like that when he was nervous.

"Yes!" Poppy said. There was a long silence. Okay, that might not have been as obvious as she thought it was. "I mean yes I will, not yes I don't believe you proposed to me on Instagram."

Freddie let out a sigh. Poppy didn't believe it could be relief; she was the one who needed to be relieved that they'd even made it this far.

"You're not mad?" He asked. Poppy couldn't help but giggle at that.

"Are you kidding? _Everyone's_ seen that by now, and they are so jealous," She said happily. "You get me."

"I try," Freddie said wryly. "So…definitely yes."

"Absolutely yes," Poppy confirmed. She couldn't stop smiling, which was totally normal, but also such a cliché. Was she going to turn into a total nerd and only talking about weddings now? Wasn’t that what was meant to come next?

"Does that mean we can make it Facebook official?" Freddie deadpanned. Poppy blew a raspberry but started installing Facebook anyway.

"Hey Freddie?" She asked, and when the app opened she hit accept on Freddie's friend request. Within seconds Freddie Kingsley is Engaged to Poppy Moore had popped up on both of their feeds.

"Yes Trouble?" He asked. He must have been watching in real-time as Poppy updated.

"You totally poached my heart," she said, an echo of her teenage bratty self in her voice.

"Yeah, well, you fried my head, so we're even," Freddie retorted. Poppy could live with that.

There were already two new comments on their engagement announcement:

 **Gerry Moore:** You should have doves at the wedding! Did you know they're almost just pigeons? (1 Like)  
**Molly Moore:** Dad, NO. (14 Likes)

Poppy adds her own like to both of them. She can deal with doves. Especially if the ribbons on their cages were red.


End file.
